Telecommunications device synchronization is the process of establishing consistency among data stored on two telecommunications terminals. For example, when a user synchronizes the user's primary cellular telephone with a backup cellular telephone, the address book and call logs of the primary telephone are copied to the backup device. After the synchronization is complete, the address books on the two devices are identical and the user has access to the same information on either device.
However, a drawback of present synchronization techniques is that they are limited to ensuring data consistency only. This drawback affects users in two ways. First, two telephones may have different software applications installed on them. For example, a calendar application may be available on the primary telephone, but not on the backup telephone. When this is the case, the functionalities of the two telephones differ and the user is going to be put at disadvantage when he or she uses the backup telephone despite the fact that the backup telephone is synchronized with the primary telephone.
Second, the user interface of the primary telephone may differ from the user interface of the backup telephone. In general, users become accustomed to the way in which different menus are laid on their telephones. When users have to switch between different interfaces they feel inconvenienced. Therefore, despite of the synchronization, a user may still be inconvenienced by different interfaces on the primary and backup cellular telephones.